Fox Drops Drama Based on Charge Against Justice Thomas

By GERALDINE FABRIKANT

Published: September 14, 1998

Fox Television has scrapped a television drama based on ''Strange Justice,'' a book about the sexual harassment charges against Clarence Thomas, after Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corporation, Fox's owner, objected to the project, several people in the industry said.

The book, written by two reporters for The Wall Street Journal and published in 1994, concluded that Anita F. Hill was telling the truth in making the charges during Senate hearings on Mr. Thomas's nomination to the Supreme Court. The National Book Awards, in naming the book a finalist, described it as a ''meticulous investigation.'' Despite the accusations, Mr. Thomas was confirmed.

Mr. Murdoch put a halt to the project two weeks ago after reading the book, according to several people close to the situation. He told an associate that Justice Thomas was a friend of his, that Mr. Thomas had been railroaded in the confirmation hearings and that he did not want Fox to proceed with the project, according to one of those people.

Justice Thomas, a well-known conservative, would seem to share at least some of Mr. Murdoch's own conservative views.

Mr. Murdoch has a history of supporting conservative politicians as well as curtailing projects that might affect the financial health of his company. Four years ago, he dropped the BBC news service from Star-TV, his Hong Kong-based satellite service, after the Chinese Government protested its coverage of Chinese dissidents.

And in February, in apparent deference to the Chinese Government, Mr. Murdoch killed a book by Chris Patten, the last British Governor of Hong Kong, that was scheduled for publication by HarperCollins, another News Corporation property. Mr. Patten's book took a tough stand on China's human rights abuses, criticizing the Government's intentions after Hong Kong was returned to China and showing how it set out to subvert moves to greater democracy.

Mr. Murdoch has worked assiduously to court the conservative establishment. Indeed, on Friday he was the host of a fund-raiser for Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, who was described in Mr. Murdoch's invitation as ''an outspoken leader for the telecommunications industry.'' Senator McCain is chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which oversees the Federal Communications Commission.

The invitation that went to top News Corporation executives requested that they contribute $1,000 each. Such invitations are not unusual, experts said, though some entertainment companies, like Viacom Inc., have not held such fund-raisers.

Mr. Murdoch did not return repeated telephone calls seeking comment. And Jim Platt, a company spokesman, said Mr. Murdoch was not inclined to talk to the press on the matter.

However, Jacob Epstein, the screenwriter on the project and a writer for both ''Hill Street Blues'' and ''L.A. Law,'' said: ''I was told that Fox was very excited about the script, and that was confirmed when they announced it as the inaugural movie for their new network, in a banner story'' in Daily Variety, the entertainment trade paper. Indeed, on July 24, an article in Daily Variety said that Fox Television Studios would begin producing films for its FX cable network and that the first project would be an adaptation of ''Strange Justice.''

Mr. Epstein continued: ''Then I learned two weeks ago that Mr. Murdoch had asked for a copy of the book 'Strange Justice,' to read over the weekend, and on Monday the project was dead.''

''Strange Justice,'' written by Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, is a detailed study of the Congressional hearings in which Ms. Hill accused Mr. Thomas of sexual misconduct. Ms. Mayer is now a writer for The New Yorker, and Ms. Abramson is now a reporter at The New York Times. Fox paid the pair roughly $20,000 for an option on the book, according to an executive involved in the negotiations.

Neither David Grant, president of Fox Television Studios, nor Marci Pool, senior vice president for movies and mini-series, returned repeated phone calls. But according to several people close to the situation, Mr. Grant and Ms. Pool were notified that Mr. Murdoch had read the book and did not want the studio to go forward. Fox had already hired Steven Haft to be the executive producer of the show, and Mr. Epstein had completed a script.

Peter Chernin, president of 20th Century Fox, the parent of Fox Television, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Murdoch had never read the script and was not involved in the project's termination. ''The script was always intended to be reasonably comedic, and it was not funny,'' Mr. Chernin said. ''The script came in and they did not like it. It was passed on by the network.'' But he did not deny that Mr. Murdoch had read the book.

But despite Mr. Chernin's statement that Fox passed on the script, the actress Whoopi Goldberg confirmed in a telephone interview last week that she had read the script and been offered the role of Ms. Hill. ''It was very good,'' Ms. Goldberg said. But she turned it down, she said, because she was busy on other projects.

This is not the first time a televised version of ''Strange Justice'' has run into trouble. Two years ago, Ted Turner, a vice chairman of Time Warner Inc., stalled a television production of the book by the Time Warner network TNT for fear of offending Justice Thomas during the Supreme Court's deliberations over a cable regulation case whose outcome could have enriched Time Warner by millions.

A Turner spokesman said at the time that the project had never been on a ''production track.'' But a person close to the production recalled last week that ''the project had been on a fast track and then it became too hot to handle.'' This person added that it was common knowledge at a lower level that it was too controversial. Mr. Turner paid the authors roughly $75,000 for an option on the project, this person added.

Mr. Chernin's efforts to blame the quality of the ''Strange Justice'' script parallels Mr. Murdoch's attempts to cover up his role in killing Mr. Patten's book on Hong Kong, ''East and West.''

The Daily Telegraph in London printed a copy of a confidential HarperCollins memo acknowledging Mr. Murdoch's assessment of the ''negative aspect of publication'' of the book and setting out a strategy for disguising the reason for abandoning publication. That memo, sent by Eddie Bell, executive chairman of HarperCollins U.K., to Anthea Disney, chief executive of News American Publishing, another subsidiary of the News Corporation, expressed great anxiety over how a ''hostile press'' might report the move.

The book's editor, Stuart Proffitt, was quoted as saying that he had been told by Adrian Bourne, managing director for the HarperCollins trade book division, that the book was being dropped because the material did not match the original outline. Mr. Proffitt was ordered to inform Mr. Patten that the book was being dropped because it was below standard. He refused and was suspended. Then he sued for breach of contract. The News Corporation settled with both Mr. Patten and Mr. Proffitt, though the sizes of the settlements were never disclosed.